The Sherlock Holmes Megapack: 25 Modern Tales by Masters: 25 Modern Tales by Masters (34 page)

I must have gone insane then.

All this happened and I was not even aware of the presence of McCabe or, except for his scream, of Tieg. But somehow our senses came back, and as one, we turned around with the goal of running and escaping. We retraced our steps, but we only got perhaps fifty yards when a creature like those we had seen dancing moved into our path from some unseen cavity in the tunnel wall. This had been the source of the furtive sounds that had caused us some concern earlier. It moved toward us slowly, for it had the equivalent of legs, but its mandibles or talons were stretched out toward us threateningly. In the middle of each was a deadly stinger from which dripped a milky liquid that must have been some sort of venom.

It was Tieg who came to his senses first, raised his shotgun, and blasted the thing at point-blank range. But it was immediately replaced with a dozen more. I cannot begin to describe the loathsomeness of these creatures. I said they were like sponges for their bodies were covered with holes an inch and more in diameter, each one of which seemed to open and close rhythmically like fish gills. Their heads were on stalks and reminded me of the head of a praying mantis. Their eyes were more akin to the things that a spider views the world with than anything sane. And I noticed that these things were making sounds! Ponderous popping sounds like huge gelatinous bubbles would make followed by slow sucking sounds. It was then that I saw a yellow mucus or slime extrude from their pores or gills or whatever the holes all over their bodies were.

By now we all had out our guns and were shooting and loading as fast as we could, but it seemed that six or ten replaced every one we slaughtered. All the while I kept trying to tell myself that there were perfectly obvious scientific reasons for everything we were experiencing.

But somehow we managed to press forward. I thanked the good Lord that we still clung to our electric torches and that they had lasted all this time. But no sooner had that sentiment entered my mind, of course, one of them began to flicker and I feared that we would soon be fighting these creatures in the pitch dark, which clearly was to their advantage.

Still to my surprise we managed to advance until we were at the cavern with the meandering creek. We had emerged from the tunnel, but all that did was allow the creatures to come at us from still more angles. From everywhere I heard their slobbering, jabbering, bubbling noises. They surrounded us, arms extended, stingers dripping, and we were running out of ammunition!

We were surrounded and doomed!

And then, amazingly, unexpectedly, unbelievably, the strange little man named Brian of Knock Magh, the dwarf who believed he was a leprechaun, simply appeared out of nowhere and, as strange and impossible as this sounds, he bore in his hands a compact submachine gun that chattered and poured bullets seemingly endlessly—in fact, in excess of 600 rounds per minute, I’ve learned—into the torsos and heads of the creatures attacking us!

The noise must have been deafening in the closed space of the cavern, but we took no notice.

I heard Brian say, “This will only stun them, as they are comprised of mainly holes in the first place. But now you have time to escape. Go left, then right, then left, then left. Then you will see the light of the moon!”

For a time, Brian slowly preceded us, shooting a path through the tide of creatures. But at some point he was no longer with us, though we could hear his weapon off in the distance. Then the next thing I remember, I was in the open air with the moon and stars shining in the sky above us. The creatures were not following us. We did not know why, nor did we care. Then I collapsed into a dead heap.

When I woke with the rising of the sun, I saw that McCabe was nearby, sitting up and looking dazed. Tieg was right next to me and rousing much as I. But then his eyes opened and he began screaming and screaming, so that McCabe and I had to hold him down. Not then, but eventually I learned to my horror that the female creature resembled his lost mother as he last remembered her. Poor boy!

Mechanically, we moved in the direction of McCabe’s villa and at one point crossed paths with a party that was searching for us. Back at the house, we placed ourselves in front of a huge fire and curled up into fetal positions, not daring to sleep. We could only quake and gasp for air.

Holmes, I know you will not believe a word of this. I can hardly believe it myself.

Though of course, my first impulse was to get away from that land as fast as humanly possible, I remembered that I had a patient. When I looked in on him, I was astonished and gratified to see that he was conscious, sitting up, eating a little—and that the fungus ring on his chest had noticeably reduced in diameter.

I’ve stayed with McCabe and the O’Nearys for a few more days and continued to administer the castor oil salve, which in fact seems to be just the ticket. Nobody knows for sure of course, but we speculated that there must indeed be some kind of hypnotic connection between the creatures, particularly the hideous mother creature, and some of the things and conditions that folklore has always insisted were subject to the supernatural whims of the Little People and fairies.

Donald O’Neary owes his recovery to that connection being severed when we unexpectedly disrupted the daily routines and habits of the creatures. McCabe and the two O’Nearys tell me that they cannot continue living here and will relocate as soon as they are able. That determination is blunted severely, however, by the knowledge that wherever we go on this planet, there must be more such “cities of gold” where reside the “fair family”! Certainly, the Celtic nations, at the very least, are rife with the things.

When McCabe, Tieg, and I compared our experiences, it was manifest that we all experienced the same horror, unaccountably bookended first and last by Brian the leprechaun! I believe that it was me who broached the idea that it may have all been a soul-altering hallucination, but none of us really believe that.

I will post this as soon as I get to the hotel and begin my return journey, which promises to be just as complex and arduous as the journey here.

Your lifelong friend,

John Watson

[Mrs Hudson—May I impose on you one further secretarial task. Please send a note to the
Birmingham Small Arms Company
letting them know that I found that their Thompson automatic model BSA 1926 (with ammunition belts) is a triumph of efficiency. Please thank them for their kindness, but also explain that I found it necessary to leave the equipment behind. I am exhausted now. Travel does not suit me any more. I never got so sick and so weary so easily in the past. This damn virus! Oh, one last thing, Mrs Hudson. You remember that long fox fur coat that you left behind during your last visit because you couldn’t fit it in your luggage. I hope it wasn’t of sentimental value for I fear it is hopelessly ruined. I’ll buy you a new one.]

THE CASE OF VAMBERRY THE WINE MERCHANT, by Jack Grochot

Our visitor at Baker Street this crisp, sunny autumn afternoon was overcome with anxiety, pacing back and forth in front of the settee and, alternately, seating himself on it momentarily, then rising to pace once more. “My dilemma,” he said with agitation to my friend Sherlock Holmes, “is profound. If I act to engage your services, Mr Holmes, it could mean her death. But if I do nothing, her life is nonetheless in danger.”

Holmes sat speechless, his bony elbows resting on the arms of the chair, his slender fingertips touched together, and his dark eyes vacant. He waited patiently for Bascomb McHugh to complete his laboured thoughts. After an elongated silence, McHugh blurted out: “Damn! It’s your advice that I need this instant. Can I pay you for that alone? I must find a way out of this predicament and protect my sweet little sister.”

As he had explained earlier, McHugh found himself in the midst of a problem that had no simple answer, and the fate of his kidnapped sister hung in the balance. She was married to Heathcliff Vamberry, a wine merchant in the Hampshire countryside west of London, and upon a visit there the day before, a Sunday, McHugh learned that the petite and comely woman was missing from her home. He questioned his brother-in-law harshly, for the two never got along, and finally came to find out that Mrs Vamberry had been abducted while alone in her house adjacent to the winery as her husband was tending to his vineyard. Vamberry discovered a ransom note, pasted together with letters and words cut out from a newspaper, on the dining room table. He reluctantly showed it to McHugh. It demanded fifty thousand pounds for Mrs Vamberry’s safe return, and it warned in bold letters:

“No coppers, else she dies.”

The crude communication instructed the husband to leave the money in a canvas sack on a bridge over the River Avon about two kilometers from the winery on Tuesday night at ten o’clock.

“And here it is, Mr Holmes,” Bascomb McHugh stated, “late in the day on Monday, and my brother-in-law has gone to the bank to withdraw his savings, which amounts to a sum of around thirty thousand pounds. I am well fixed, and I can lend him the remainder, but what guarantee do we have that my poor, beautiful sister will be unharmed?” His icy blue eyes flashed, anticipating the worst outcome. It was at this point that McHugh emphasised his profound dilemma and begged Holmes for advice.

Holmes rose and approached the mantle to retrieve a cherrywood pipe half full of shag tobacco. Ever calm in stressful situations, he contemplated briefly while he nonchalantly struck a match and inhaled the mixture.

“Advice I can offer free of charge,” he told McHugh, adding: “If I were Mr Vamberry, I would send someone such as yourself to the authorities—rather than go himself, for he might be under surveillance—and allow the police to become involved, because they are experienced in delicate matters that require discreet maneuvering. If this is what he and you decide, there is no need for my involvement whatsoever.”

Sounding disappointed, McHugh exchanged farewells with Holmes and me, donned his well-brushed top hat, straightened his black silk waistcoat, smoothed the wrinkles out of his grey Harris-tweed trousers, glanced at the pocket watch on the end of a gold Albert chain, and went down the hallway steps with erect bearing toward a waiting brougham. That he was prosperous was of no doubt, but that he was a London barrister was evident only to Holmes when McHugh entered our flat.

“He seemed shocked, Watson,” observed Holmes, “that I knew his occupation, especially when I explained that it was a peculiarity of mine to surmise one’s means of a livelihood merely by appearances. If truth be known, the not-too-infrequent mention of his name in the dailies for passionately winning acquittals against Scotland Yard’s most competent inspectors gave him away when he arrived. Perhaps now that he is so close to the victims of a crime he’ll have a different opinion of the miscreants he represents and the necessity for justice. In any event, if I am not mistaken, I believe we shall see Mr McHugh again, and soon.”

* * * *

That evening, Holmes and I dined at home after Mrs Hudson, our landlady, surprised us with a supper of pork chops, new potatoes, and a warm beetroot salad. Afterward, we walked leisurely to the Strand for a copy of the evening
Globe
and shared it by the crackling fireplace, commenting to each other about the articles we determined to be of notable interest.

“Here is a man after my own heart, Watson,” murmured Holmes when reading a feature story. “He has taken up beekeeping in retirement and earns as much as he did as a groom by selling honey to London grocers and village neighbours.”

“The work is not as light as one would imagine, Holmes,” I countered, “and in the winter there is no profit.”

“All the same, the lifestyle is appealing,” Holmes noted, then folded the newspaper onto the armchair next to mine and began to busy himself at the deal-topped table, where he was in the middle of an experiment that required a dash of sugar and a splash of white vinegar to disguise the taste of the poison he was concocting.

“It is colourless and odourless, right where I want it, Watson,” he intoned. “Now all we need do is capture a rat behind the Chinese restaurant around the corner to test how deadly my formula can be. That it is lethal I have no worries, but the trick will be to see if it can be detected in the blood or in the organs. The result will be the subject of my next monograph.”

I was in no frame of mind to go out and trap a rat, so I retired for the night, but Holmes fashioned a box out of some loose cardboard under the table and left the apartment.

* * * *

In the morning, the box was sitting on top of the table and the small beast inside was stiff as a board. Before breakfast, Holmes occupied himself dissecting the unfortunate creature and examining the innards under a microscope.

After we ate, we spent the rest of the forenoon on a trip to the Great Peter Street library, where Holmes researched articles and books in preparation for his writing the monograph, while I perused
The Daily Telegraph
,
The Guardian
, and
The Morning Chronicle
, finding very little in them to be noteworthy.

On the way back to Baker Street, we spoke at length about McHugh’s problem and wondered if Mrs Vamberry was still alive. “Tomorrow we shall hear from him if all is not resolved tonight,” Holmes conjectured. “Kidnappings usually end miserably, despite the best efforts of the official police.”

At about one o’clock on Wednesday, McHugh’s carriage pulled up in front of our building, and he alighted, along with a companion, both looking sombre. As I watched from the window and described their arrival to Holmes, he put down his pen on the desk where he had been writing.

“It appears last night and this morning didn’t go well,” he assumed. “I would hazard a guess that Mr McHugh has brought Mr Vamberry and they will want me to locate Mrs Vamberry in perfect health.”

We heard Mrs Hudson’s footsteps on the stairs a minute or so after the door bell had rung, and she came in to announce that McHugh and Vamberry were anxious to see Holmes immediately. “It’s about the missing woman that Mr McHugh spoke of the day before yesterday,” Mrs Hudson said. “The man with him is her husband. They are both very distraught.”

“Send them up at once, then,” Holmes directed, and thanked her for the warning. “You may leave the door open,” he said as he slipped into his green double-breasted jacket and buttoned it.

In an instant, McHugh was standing on the threshold, with Vamberry meekly behind him. McHugh waved his index finger at Holmes, as if making a point to a jury in a tense courtroom, chastising Holmes for giving poor advice. “We did as you suggested and contacted the Hampshire district’s special constable, who proceeded to make a horrible and thorough mess of an already disastrous situation,” McHugh began. “Our Phoebe is still unaccounted for and the ransom money is gone.”

“Give me the precise details of your experience, calmly,” Holmes answered unapologetically while casually offering the two guests the armchairs with his outstretched hand.

They accepted his invitation and McHugh continued the narrative:

“When I left here Monday, I drove straight to the winery and persuaded my brother-in-law to seek the assistance of the authorities. After a hurried meal, I then rode to the police station late in the evening, and waited an interminable time for the officer on duty to fetch the special constable Isaac Thornburgh from his home, where he was found in his bed-clothes.

“He listened to my story and decided to ensnare one of the kidnappers on the bridge when he came to pick up the canvas sack. Thornburgh said he would then convince the offender that it was in his best interest to lead the police to where his accomplices had secreted Mrs Vamberry, because there was no escaping the gallows if she were to be killed.

“I was reticent to go along with Thornburgh’s plan, thinking my sister would have a better chance of survival if Mr Vamberry and I simply followed the instructions in the ransom note. However, Thornburgh explained that the authorities would act to intercept the transfer of money and rescue my sister regardless of my opinion, so I acceded to his wishes.

“Yesterday morning, I was committed to representing a client scheduled for a judicial hearing, so I went to the Central Criminal Court and later to the bank to withdraw the twenty thousand pounds that would complete the ransom package, just as Thornburgh had stipulated. I then returned to the winery, where my brother-in-law placed these funds in his safe with the thirty thousand pounds he had secured from his accounts.”

Throughout McHugh’s recital, Vamberry sat without uttering a word, nodding in agreement as McHugh went on:

“The rest of the day passed slowly, with hardly any conversation, except a word here and there about how much Phoebe means to each of us. A half hour before ten o’clock we took the canvas sack to my brougham and drove together to the bridge. Heathcliff here placed the sack on the walkway in the middle of the structure. Thornburgh already had positioned his men in the bushes at either end of the bridge so they could have a view of the sack from both directions.

“But to our chagrin, because of the season a dense fog settled in over the river and obscured their sight. It was a pea-souper, so thick the police were unable even to see the bridge.

“I expected to return to the winery in the morning to find our Phoebe alive and well, but instead, only my brother-in-law was there with Thornburgh, who reported that the canvas sack had disappeared during the night without the police hearing or seeing anything at all. They have bungled this affair royally, and you, Mr Holmes, are our last hope to bring my sister home safely.”

Vamberry then chimed in, speaking sheepishly. He nervously scratched his bald head and stroked his clean-shaven chin and cheeks. “My wife, Mr Holmes, is of paramount concern to me, but the loss of the money has wiped me out. My winery is in ruin because of the phylloxera epidemic that has spread from France to Britain, and so my business is failing for lack of good wine to sell. If you could recover the ransom as well as save Phoebe’s life, I would be eternally grateful.”

Holmes said nothing for a short time, slowly walking about the room with his hands clasped behind his back, then: “I fear the worst for Mrs Vamberry, so if I involve myself in your case, you might come to learn that I have discovered the identity of the kidnappers without having achieved her return unharmed. As for the ransom, there is a fifty-fifty chance of success.”

“Oh, I beg you to try your best, come what may,” McHugh implored humbly.

“Please do,” Vamberry added plaintively.

Holmes agreed to take up their cause, but first asked a question that seemed out of context. “From what banks did you obtain the ransom money?” he wanted to know.

“What has that to do with your inquiry?” Vamberry retorted.

“It might very well be that someone at one of the banks was aware of what assets you had available and conjured up the scheme to relieve you of them,” Holmes told him.

“I withdrew the funds from the National Bank of England,” McHugh revealed, and Vamberry named Forsythe & Company at Newmarket Heath.

With that, Holmes bade our visitors goodbye and mentioned a word of encouragement. “Possibly by the time you reach the winery Mrs Vamberry will be awaiting you at home. Do not lose hope for her.” He also said he would see them in a day or so in Hampshire, “for I shall begin my investigation in London and proceed to the outskirts in due course.”

After they had departed, Holmes volunteered that the matter was particularly perplexing because there was scant physical evidence upon which to rely. He didn’t rule out the potential that Mrs Vamberry was unhappy in her marriage and had arranged for her own disappearance, as well as for the opportunity to flee with a tidy sum. “There is one other possibility, but it is too premature to theorise,” he said cryptically, without explaining further.

Holmes excused himself and went up to his bedroom to change into his back-alley uniform, a shabby turtle-neck shirt, brown dungarees, and a lint-marked sweater. “We have time before dinner for me to consult my informants to see if they have noticed any ne’er-do-wells spending an exorbitant amount of cash that could be part of the ransom money—if indeed it is in circulation,” he remarked as he hustled toward the stairwell.

I had a need for some fresh air myself, so I donned my derby and grabbed my walking stick for a pleasant jaunt around the park. I noticed geese on the pond, an indication that the coming winter was still a month or more away, but the gathering clouds were a sign of impending rain, so I hurried back to 221B before I got a good soaking. I had been gone for about two hours, but Holmes remained out on his excursion. He came through the doorway at nearly six o’clock and was in a talkative mood.

“All the known hoodlums are as poor as church mice,” he proclaimed, “except for Archie Stamford, the forger, who recently inherited ten thousand pounds from his dear mother, a forever tolerant woman who bailed him out of trouble a number of times when she was vibrant. Her generosity was for certain an inducement for Archie to continue his criminal behaviour. She saw it differently, though, as only a devoted mother could.”